Chapter 3624
Chapter 3624
Chapter 3624
On the day after the Nijo Castle bloodbath, reinforcements from several feudal domains near Kyoto arrived one after another, allowing the shogunate to finally have troops at its disposal. Tokugawa Ietsuga then ordered the Kyoto area to be placed under martial law, and at the same time launched a hunt for wandering samurai who had recently been causing trouble and spreading rumors.
This undoubtedly further exacerbated the tension in Kyoto. In order to avoid being affected, some of the refugees began to flee Kyoto, while others chose to go to various local shelters in the hope of avoiding this round of chaos.
The lives of local people in Kyoto were also greatly affected. Most shops and workshops chose to close down, the number of pedestrians on the streets became sparse, and the city was filled with a scene of depression.
The guards of Tokugawa Ietsugu went to the refugee camp to carry out the search mission. They were the elite of the shogunate army. Although they were small in number, they were well-equipped and all of them were born as shogunate samurai. Their combat effectiveness and loyalty were unquestionable.
However, when this elite force arrived at the refugee camp in southern Kyoto, they found nothing. The camp, which originally housed tens of thousands of refugees, now had only a hundred or so people.
There were only a few wounded and sick people who had difficulty moving left here. Anyone who was able-bodied and able to walk had heard the news that the shogunate was going to arrest the refugees and had voluntarily left the refugee camp early.
The mission that was originally expected to take at least two or three days to complete was now declared over. Moreover, the situation here made it impossible to just grab a few people and bring them back for the mission. Even a fool would not believe that the ones who messed up Kyoto would be such a group of old, weak, and sick people.
It is not difficult to know where the refugees are going. However, if you go to these special places to search for targets, you will definitely encounter some resistance. You can only report the situation first and ask for instructions on the next step.
Tokugawa Ietsugu felt a headache when he heard that the latest gathering places for refugees were mostly temples and Zen shrines, not to mention that there were also places like the Imperial Garden and the Hai Han Trading Company where it was inconvenient to take action.
But now that the situation has been set, it is impossible to raise it high and then let it go easily. He can only bite the bullet and let his troops continue to carry out the search and arrest mission. However, he needs to avoid the two sensitive places of Yuyuan and Donghaixing for the time being to avoid unnecessary trouble.
It was easy for Tokugawa Ietsugu to give orders while sitting in Nijo Castle, but those temples and Zen shrines were not easy to deal with.
In order to maintain their compassionate image, these religious institutions had to grant refugees asylum. Moreover, serious bloodshed had just occurred yesterday. Even if it was just a pretense, they had to step in to stop the shogunate troops who came to carry out search missions.
The orders received by the shogunate army did not allow them to kill indiscriminately. Instead, they were required to control the situation as much as possible, avoid the escalation of new conflicts, and minimize casualties during the mission.
Therefore, the search operation soon turned into a confrontation between the shogunate army and the monks and priests. It was certainly not difficult to use force to subdue these unarmed people, but this would inevitably lead to more serious conflicts. After all, the appeal of these religious institutions among the people might be much greater than that of the shogunate.
Of course, if it is just a confrontation, it is far from enough to satisfy those who instigated this matter. If you want things to continue to develop, then the conflict must continue.
A new round of bloody conflicts soon broke out in Tofukuji Temple, Yasaka Shrine and other places where refugees gathered.
Due to the chaos, the cause of the conflict could not be verified, but the version of events that were circulated among the people afterwards was very consistent, all claiming that the shogunate army opened fire first, shooting and killing the clergy who blocked their way into the refugee gathering area, and then was counterattacked by some angry citizens. Whether it was the shogunate army or the ronin warriors hiding in the dark who opened fire was no longer the focus of the matter.
After the shogunate army heading to Tofuku-ji Temple broke through the monks' blockade, the chaos continued to expand. The panicked refugees were trampled and hundreds of people fell to the ground.
The situation at Yasaka Shrine was similar, with a stampede caused by the chaos taking at least hundreds of lives.
The shogunate troops who were carrying out the search mission did not suffer no casualties. During the search in Toyama Jisho-ji Temple, they actually ran into a group of ronin warriors hiding there. At least twenty shogunate troops were killed or wounded in the fight between the two sides, and the ronin warriors all died in battle after being surrounded. No one was captured alive.
Now, the thousands of refugees who were staying in Toyama Jisho-ji Temple with the ronin warriors were forced to bear the suspicion of treason, and none of them could be let go.
Although people could not leave, the news could not be blocked. All the places where bloody conflicts occurred were quickly spread with relevant news.
The shogunate was still busy dealing with the aftermath at the time and had no time to announce the results of the action, which once again left huge space for all kinds of exaggerated rumors.
As a result, new rumors became more and more outrageous, even to the point of being sensational, claiming that the shogunate army carried out massacres in many refugee gathering places, and even spared monks and priests.
Some people also claimed that thousands of people inside and outside the Toyama Jishoji Temple were killed, without leaving a single survivor. They made a very convincing claim, and used the fact that the area was completely blocked by the shogunate army as evidence - if everyone was not killed, why was the place completely sealed off and no one was allowed to enter or leave?
It was difficult to tell whether these rumors were true or not, and it was difficult for the shogunate to prove its innocence. If it said that no one died in the conflict, no one would believe it, after all, it was impossible to completely block the news. But if it said that the death toll was not as high as the rumors said, the effect of this clarification would probably be worse than pretending to be dead and not responding.
This undoubtedly put the shogunate in an extremely unfavorable situation. On the one hand, the war to conquer Kyushu was intensifying, and on the other hand, the shogunate massacred the refugees who had fled their homes to Kyoto. So, between the shogunate and the so-called Kyushu rebels, who was the righteous side? It was probably no longer up to the shogunate to decide unilaterally.
At this critical juncture, the battle report from the Kyushu front finally reached Kyoto.
Although the detailed process of the battle was still a military secret that only the top brass of the shogunate could see, the result that the shogunate army was defeated and lost the Kanmon Strait soon spread from Nijo Castle.
This just confirms the rumors in Kyoto a few days ago. At that time, many people did not believe that the shogunate army had been defeated, but now that the battle report has come out, in addition to making people sigh and lament, many people have also thought of another rumor at the time, that is, the shogunate planned to withdraw money, food and manpower from Kyoto to reverse the defeat on the front line.
Previous rumors had it that the shogunate would recruit young and strong men from the refugees to supplement the troops, but after two days of bloodshed, it might be difficult to implement this plan.
But if the refugee group cannot provide the troops needed by the shogunate, then this task will probably have to be transferred to the local people in Kyoto.